Day: November 7, 2013

Azteca America starts airing a lucha libre program this weekend, Saturday at 2pm CT. It’s listed as “Lucha Azteca” (though it was listed “Lucha Libre” at first; may want to double check you’re still getting it if you previously set it to record.) It appears to be CMLL and my hunch it’s recycled Fox Sports shows. No one’s said anything for sure, so that’s all of a preview I can do.

I will be trying to record/upload this show. However, Azteca America and my DVR do not get along well – it’s as if the channel is a badly buffering web feed which occasionally causes my DVR just to freak out and reboot – so it’s not a sure thing I’ll get it up here. The good thing is, if I’m right about it being just stuff we’ve seen, it doesn’t really matter all that much.

== AAA ==

AAA-Televisa: Part 1 from Tonala. AAA says the AJ/Mesias match will not air until next week, so the trios main event will air for sure, and I’m guessing the Secta/Circus trios match. Women’s trios goes to UTDN in that situation.

== CMLL ==

FOX: Thru daylight savings time mishaps (for real), I know the plan was to air the top 3 matches from last week – the Terra main event (with a questionable shocker), Roja/UG/Volador vs Sombra/Mascara/Mistico, and Tama Tonga vs Rush.

52MX: Should be the two title matches. This would be a good week to skip the GDL match.

Like this:

I’ve broken down each luchador’s appearances by shows for this year. I’m counting events appeared on, not matches. (Luchadors are counted once per show, no matter how many matches they’re in.) I’ve only included at least people who’ve appeared on 10 shows. This includes the announced cards for the next week. Table is sorted by total appearances.

Green means more than half of their matches are on that day. Red means less than 10%. The averages are 32.4% of appearances on Sunday, 33.2% on Tuesday and 34.4% on Fridays (I wish there was a way to create a lot of pie graphs quickly.)

The five guys who haven’t appeared on Friday night shows: Genesis, Ramstein, Nosferatu, Zayco, Metatron. That’s who we would expect to see – fringe guys who are still booked a little.

Tuesday is the worst night to be on – bad payoffs to guys CMLL still uses but doesn’t have many plans (or they’d be on a better day.) It’s the night you want to be on the least, and you can tell by the names who get stuck on those shows at the highest rate of their matches: Génesis, Morphosis, Ramstein, Cholo, Zayco, Último Dragoncito, Olímpico, Pequeño Halcón, (poor) Sagrado, Fantasy, Robin, Pequeño Warrior, Pierrothito, Akuma, Zeuxis, Apocalipsis, Metatrón. Lots of minis, lots of opener people, and fringe Invasors. Meanwhile, Rush and Mistico have appeared rarely.

The person who has the highest percentage of matches on Friday nights is La Silueta. She’s had 17 matches, 12 on Friday, 2 on Sunday and 3 on Tuesday. Maybe she’s not around much because she’s busy on non-Fridays? Seductora is right behind her at 67% by virtue of having 1 more match, on a Sunday. The rest are more traditional top guys.

Magnus has had 3/4ths of his matches this year on Sundays. Camorra, Stigma, Signo and Metalico are high on that list due to their day of the week feuds.

Guerrero Maya has made the most appearances on Sunday (24), Delta has been on the most Tuesdays (24), and Rush (35) is the Friday night star.

Like this:

CMLL and NJPW announced the list of wrestlers for FantasticaMania. The tour’s being hyped around the in-ring NJPW debut of Mistico (who was on last year’s tour but hurt) and the first appearance here of unmasked Volador Jr. In addition, returning CMLL luchadors Rush, La Sombra, Mascara Dorada, Titan, Maximo, Ultimo Guerrero, Mephisto, Rey Escorpion and Okumura are joined by FantasticaMania debuts Stuka Jr., Rey Cometa, Fuego (Tanahashi’s favorite), Vangellys and Niebla Roja. Those 16 guys will make up an all CMLL show on 01/17 and team/fight the NJPW guys on the other four shows. Namajague is not announced because he’s NJPW, but should be on this tour and be fighting his usual Cometa/Stuka/Fuego rivals. Matches won’t be announced for a while longer. Sombra, Mephisto, and Rey Escorpion are currently singles champions and would figure to defend their titles on the tour. (The Titan/Mephisto seems like a strong possibility for the tour.) If I’m understanding the NJPW translation correctly, both ring announcer Ivan and edecan Ana will also be going – CMLL didn’t mention them, but Ivan’s a regular and CMLL sent Bruni last year.

That’s a big chunk of CMLL luchadors, which is going to leave for some shallow cards back in Mexico that week, especially on the tecnico side. There’s still plenty of quality luchadors who are sticking around, but it would take more creativity than usual to make it work and that’s not something to expect out of CMLL. More likely more minis/womens matches than usual, and an extremely week Tuesday show.

Marisela Pena told a fan on Twitter AAA will tape on 12/14 in Puerto Vallarta. That looks like the year ending show (which doesn’t air until after the 3 weeks of Best Of content; it’d start airing on 01/18 ), but it’s a week or so earlier than usual. So is Guerra de Titanes, and it may just be the way they’re doing things this year. You can tell who won’t be on that taping by looking at Pasion Kristal’s lineup for the same day – La Secta, Toscano, Drago and the exoticos are among those on that show.

Tercera Caida has launched an IWRG.TV YouTube channel with video of Castillo del Terror. I hope this means good things for the TVC Deportes/IWRG relationship (though it’s all the same to me if it’s on YouTube.) Alan Extreme & Golden Magic also discuss the match on Estrellas del Ring.

Main event is an elimination match where the losers become lumberjacks. Last one left gets a shot at the Rey del Ring title (Oficial 911). Min Rod is probably Nimrod but I’m just going to leave that there. Anubis Black is a new name.

Graduation show for a three day seminar; all the mystery people will be trainees. Info about the seminar here – Crazy Boy is teaching the ring psychology class, Skayde is teaching the international wrestling one.

The card is a usual Monterrey card, but the poster is an amazing disaster. I think someone got paid per font. They still did a better job of highlighting the date and location than other posters I’ve seen.

This is part of the lucha libre expo they’re holding in Puebla. DTU Puebla Surprise is surely Lucky Boy, and they may just be unsure of what they name they can use or if they’re allowed to reveal who is who yet. My hunch has been Lucky Boy = Venum, but can’t confirm that.

Like this:

Hijo del Fantasma appeared on Tercera Caida, talking about his move from CMLL to AAA. The on TV interview was more about the circumstances of his move (he tried to talk to Paco Alonso but was not allowed to do more than send an email, the matchmakers made no attempt to keep him), an after the show conversation posted to YouTube focused more on the poor conditions in CMLL: people in charge of shows leave early, those in charge don’t watch the matches, there’s a lot of obvious favoritism and nepotism, and CMLL lets people go the ring drunk or high. Fantasma was also very excited by the people he now gets to work with in AAA. The conversation was talked a lot about on the internet, but doesn’t seem to have gotten mainstream press attention and CMLL predictably has no reaction.

AAA held it’s first post-Heroes Inmortales taping in Tonala, where the match on the show that got the most attention was actually one for TNA. AJ Styles defended his heavyweight title against Mesias, despite the rudos interfering. La Secta were involved all over the card, again, setting up a hair match among the women and challenging the Psycho Circus to a trios title match. (Both matches seem like they’ll take place at Guerra de Titanes, which is weird because half of La Secta were announced to be in going on AJPW tour and would miss that AAA show. AAA hasn’t mentioned the AJPW trip and it doesn’t seem like there’s an angle coming to write them out.) Two new trios – Juvi’s la Anaraquia and Aerostar’s new Cadetes del Espacio – debuted with wins.

Delta & Guerrero Maya won the Arena Coliseo Tag Team titles Sunday in a very good match. Namajague & Okumura had held the titles for the last few months, and Namajague losing means he’s just about done in CMLL. The main event was a Mephisto/Titan title match, which was derailed by a Mephisto injury and ended in a draw.

CMLL TV starts this Saturday on the Azteca America network (local affiliates across the US.) It’s an hour of some lucha libre, but no idea which building or which day will air. CMLL has not mentioned the existence of this show, as usual, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll have much of an impact.

Talented young rudo Alan Xtreme surprisingly lost his mask in IWRG’s annual Castillo del Terror. Golden Magic won the mask, his second win in this cage match in three years.

CMLL’s main Friday night feud continues to be Tama Tonga versus Rush. Tonga defeated Rush in straight falls last Friday to finally set up the much delayed tag team title match this Friday.

CMLL had two fan/wrestler fights in two days: Namajague hit a fan on Sunday, and Rush had an incident on Monday. There doesn’t appear to be any fallout.